Making Babies and Decisions
This week I’m looking at young American women, the choices they make about how they are going to live their lives, and the role older female mentors can play in helping youngsters make good decisions. I’ve included two CNN videos that work very nicely together. The first one describes a number of societal problems facing young women today, and the second one, which profiles a wonderful woman named Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch, shows how role models can help girls overcome many of the difficulties that they face.
Just a little to set up the first video: Mike Galanos, of CNN, is shown discussing the problem of teen pregnancy at Robeson High School in Chicago with two experts–Dr. Brenda Wade, a clinical psychologist, and Lauren Lake, attorney and co-founder of Women in Entertainment Empowerment Network. The video provides no justification for why CNN chose to focus on this particular school. Anyway, as you’ll see when you watch the video, the numbers of pregnant girls at RHS is indeed high. What I most like about the video is that the experts actually focus their discussion on the larger issue–why so many young women are making so many bad choices, decisions that are likely to limit their abilities to reach their full potential as human beings.
For me, the most telling comment came right toward the end of clip when Ms. Lake asked the following question (I’m paraphrasing): Why don’t we celebrate more people for being intelligent? She then goes on to say that we worship those with sex appeal but show limited appreciation for those who use their brains.
Now, on to video two, which presents a possible solution to the problems we’ve been discussing.
The thing that makes Ms. Kickbusch’s message so persuasive is that it comes out of her ethos, her credibility, as a speaker. She understands her audience and can speak to them with great power because she was among them at one point in her life.
I find it very interesting that she went from being a lieutenant colonel in the army to mentor of young women. We often think of those who serve in the military as being protectors of “national security.” Unfortunately, though, we often don’t realize that teachers play this same important role.
Being an educator and thus someone who has thought long and hard about the larger implications of my work, I can assure you that there is nothing more important to a nation’s security than making sure its young women are well educated and empowered.
Tags: Women's Issues
